Internet by Satellite

[Mister2]

Does anyone know anything about DiercPC or has anyone tried it?
Was currious to see how it compares to DSL or Cable. I live in a rural area and my not have the necessary line for some time.
I currently have Mindspring as my ISP, there connect rate has really gone down the toilet since their merger with Earthlink. I need to find something else that will keep me from nodding off between pages.

 

[Sir Fredrick]

It seemed cool a few years ago, but the huge drawback was that you still needed a modem connection for sending data. Not a big deal if all you do is browse websites I guess.

 

[Tripleshot]

I believe Direct PC is for download only---you still need an ISP to upload.You may be interested to know that sometime around Oct(I believe thats what they said),a new service will be made available for direct satelite uplink--no telco or cable modem connection at all.They satelite people are working on it now.I do believe websurfing will be good but the latency between earth and up there will not be good for UT players.IMHO.

 

[corkyg]

Supposedly two-way direct satellite connection will make its debut this fall. Until that happens, it is download only, and you need a regular modem connection to trigger it as well as upload.

I vaguely recall it will be Dish-TV, but that could be mistaken.

 

[Redneck]

The new service coming out is http://www.gilat2home.com apparently they are partnering with the Dish network like DirecTV and PC.

 

[Ulysses]

You might talk to Radio Shack. Their commercial catalog shows dishes for DirectTV. That G2H looks very interesting.
See:
[L]http://www.gamepc.com/guides/printguide.asp?guide=internet[/L}

 

[Livin4Real]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Don't do it man! DirecPC is junk!
Aside from the ungodly price tag for equipment, you pay $50 a month
for a lousy 100hrs! Not to mention they cutback your speed if your a heavy downloader! Believe me I am in the same boat as you. I live in BFE and the only service I can get is ISDN for $80 a month! So I just got a second line and am going to live with it till cable comes available.It is only $50 a month with equipment and Comcast is doing free install right now so you might check into it!

 

[dawks]

Yea, its pretty bad, I mean if its all you can get, and your willing to pay for it, then go for it! But other then that, bah.

The numbers may vary, but a sort of standard seems to be downloads off the dish at 400KBits, or 50Kbytes/sec. Then you need the standard phone modem to upload, at standard phone modem upload speeds(2-3K/sec.). And this modem needs to be connected while your online(other-wise, you wouldnt be able to send requests for websites )

So it sucks. It sucks for gaming. But if its the best you can get Go4It!

 

[Goi]

Bandwidth may be comparable to other highspeed internet access like DSL/Cable, but latency(pings) will suck, simply because the signal will have to travel from the earth to the satellite miles away from the surface, and then down again. Also, keep in mind that anything wireless tends to be more susceptible to data corruption, and are less reliable.

 

[Mister2]

Thanks for all the replys.

I finally found the web site for DirecPC; it helps when you spell it correctly.

The charges seemed a little outragious...$49.99 per month, plus and additional charge from the ISP and thats for only 100 hrs per month then 1.99 hr after that. Between my wife and I we normally rack up some where around 200 hrs a month. Then you add the hardware and installation which looks to be somewhere in the neighborhood of $250.00.

Think I'll skip this and look for another ISP.

Mindspring/Eartlink is SUCK!!!

 

[Ultimar]

Stop into a RadioShack to talk about Gilat to home. Radio Shack signed a deal with Microsoft to offer MSN over the Gilat to home Satillites. Information is spotty but the employees should start knowing about it by the end of the month.

 

[Sir Fredrick]

I used earthlink way back when, it sucked for me too. slooooowwwwwwww. They blamed it on my computer, had me make a bunch of changes. didn't fix anything. went with another ISP and speeds were normal again.

 

[Tripleshot]

Mister2

directpc is todays satilite method.DO NOT confuse that with what is coming out in the fall.It will be totally different and the people I have talked to are saying the latency will not be that much of a problem,albeit, it will not be as good as wire or fiber. They are coming out with some new compresion or something.(I'm not tooo savvvy in satelite speak)


I just thought you neeed to know there will be a difference in the new satelite offering in the fall.

 

[damocles]

Just had Satellite installed. I cant get cable and ADSL is capped here. The bad things about Sat are that the pings are only a little better than a good modem and upload = 56k modem (My sat is funnelled through a terrestrial link-other sat can lag massively).

The good thing is my download speeds are great. 200k per sec is average and it peaks about 470k per sec. Of course you have to find good sites for that

 

[lomiller]

Absolutely correct Goi. The latency on a satellite link would suck big time. The satellite link alone would add nearly 800ms of latency. Double that if you are doing both the upload and download over the satellite.

Has anybody else here ever talked on a satellite phone? The latency is so bad that that it is difficult to have a normal conversation until you get the hang of it. The person on the other end doesn?t hear what you are saying until 3/4 of a second after you speak. If they are not used to this delay they will almost always end up talking at the same time as you.

You could end up with ping times as high as 3 seconds (3000 ms)

 

[damocles]

Well, i play Unreal Tournie on my Sat and the pings vary between 90ms and 160 ms. Being close to a SKY tower certainly helps. ADSL and cable ARE definitely better for games though